I had never heard the story until my niece's graduation from Annapolis (she went Marines, so she's a 2nd Lt. now).

When the superintendent of the academy got to the punch line, it was pretty thrilling to hear the entire graduating class shout, "Full speed ahead!" I also liked his advice - "wear sunscreen!"

That was even better than sitting in the Hugo awards ceremony the year Galaxy Quest beat out The Matrix, and the MC said, "I can't resist this - Never Give Up!" and hundreds of us shouted back "Never Surrender!" Both the writer and the director were there to receive the award. It must have been a little like living out the movie.

"There once was a tiger-striped cat. This cat died a million deaths, revived & lived a million lives, and he was owned by various people who he really didn't care for. The cat wasn't afraid to die. Then one day the cat became a stray cat which meant he was free. He met a white female cat & the two of them spent their days together happily. Well, years passed & the white cat grew weak & died of old age. The tiger-striped cat cried a million times, & then he died too. Except this time, he

"Transform and Roll out!" from Transformers. I always cover my mouth when I say it, so I look like Optimus Prime.
"All Systems Nominal" from Mechwarrior. I love that sound as my computer boot up sound. Then "Engines Shutting Down" as my shut down sound.

- Ben Hur...and then I wish I had a drummer as well, and everyone in the team would be typing and clicking at ramming speed. Junior developers would break down and be pulled off their chairs, being replaced with fresh grunts down from the pits...

Related by a retired infantry soldier, during a Big Damn Gunships moment [tvtropes.org] as a Stryker pulled a drift turn into the corner the soldiers were pinned in, and opened up with the Bushmaster: (read it in a thick Midwest accent for full effect)

Well, the SRBs, once lit, will continue to burn until expended or sent a self-destruct command. At which point, they will continue to burn, at a significantly increased rate, until fuel is expended. Launch commit, with the Shuttle, comes with sending the ignition command to the SRBs, and you had better hope there is not a hang-fire or one of them fails to light.

That said, I've always wondered if you saw trouble coming several seconds away, if you couldn't flush the main engines with hydrogen (if there'

In the Apollo program -- at least, with Saturn V launches -- it's "Ignition sequence start" at T-7 seconds. Those F-5 engines had a complicated ignition sequence which took several seconds just to get the dang things lit. (The pre-burners which turned the propellant turbopumps had to be lit first, and the RP-1 propellant (essentially kerosene) was also used as the hydraulic fluid for gimballing the outboard engines, so had to be pressurized.)